Temwa Is HER!!!
There are great seasons.
There are historic seasons.
And then there is what Temwa Chaŵinga has done with almost every opportunity football has given her.
Sweden.
China.
Southern Africa.
The United States.
Now WAFCON.
At every stop, the pattern has been remarkably consistent:
goals.
A lot of them.
The back-to-back NWSL MVP awards and Golden Boots are the achievements that have made Temwa one of the most recognisable players in world football.
But they are not where her story starts.
And they are certainly not the whole story.
It started in Malawi
Temwa grew up in Rumphi in northern Malawi, one of five sisters in the Chaŵinga family.
Like Tabitha before her, she grew up playing football with boys.
Her older sister would become central to the direction her career took.
Tabitha had already joined DD Sunshine in Lilongwe when she recommended that the club take Temwa too. In 2013, DD Sunshine did exactly that. FIFA later quoted Tabitha explaining that the recommendation was not simply an act of sisterhood: she believed Temwa genuinely had the potential to become an elite player.
That relationship would repeat itself throughout their careers.
Tabitha would move first.
Temwa would follow.
And eventually, Temwa would begin creating history of her own.
Sweden: 55 goals in 57 games
When Tabitha left Kvarnsvedens IK in Sweden for China, the Swedish club needed another goalscorer.
Tabitha knew exactly who to recommend.
Temwa.
She joined Kvarnsvedens and scored 55 goals in 57 appearances across two seasons.
That number is important because it established something early.
Temwa’s finishing was not merely a product of one football environment.
Her goals travelled.
She had left Malawi.
She had moved into European football.
And she was still scoring at extraordinary volume.
Then came China.
China: the younger sister stops merely following
Temwa joined Wuhan Jianghan University in 2020.
The timing created one of the most memorable moments in the Chaŵinga sisters’ shared career.
Tabitha was playing for Jiangsu Suning.
Temwa was playing for Wuhan.
The two teams met in the Chinese Women’s Super League championship decider.
Temwa scored the opening goal.
Wuhan won 4–0.
The club claimed its first Chinese Women’s Super League title.
There is something almost symbolic about that moment.
Tabitha had opened the road into international professional football.
Temwa had followed her down it.
Then, in a championship match, the younger sister scored against the elder sister’s team and lifted the title.
At some point, Temwa’s story stopped being simply:
Tabitha’s younger sister is also very good.
It became:
Temwa Chaŵinga is one of the best goalscorers in football.
Four titles in China
Her Wuhan period became dominant.
Kansas City Current records Temwa as having played 84 matches and scored 84 goals for Wuhan between 2020 and 2023.
The club won four consecutive Chinese Women’s Super League championships during her time there.
Then came 2023.
And Temwa went completely ridiculous.
Kansas City credits her with 51 goals for Wuhan during the 2023 calendar year, making her the world’s leading scorer across club competitions.
Other contemporary accounting that includes her Malawi goals places her full-year total even higher.
Either way, the point is the same:
Temwa Chaŵinga had become one of the most prolific footballers on Earth.
And she was about to do something equally important for Malawi.
COSAFA 2023: nine goals and Malawi’s first title
Temwa captained Malawi at the 2023 COSAFA Women’s Championship.
The Scorchers had never won the tournament.
Temwa scored nine goals.
That included a hat-trick against South Africa, four goals against Eswatini and two more against Mozambique in the semi-final.
Malawi reached the final and defeated defending champions Zambia 2–1.
The Scorchers were COSAFA champions for the first time.
Temwa left the tournament with:
The Golden Boot.
And:
Player of the Tournament.
That period matters in retrospect.
Three years before Malawi reached its first WAFCON final, there had already been evidence that something was changing.
The Scorchers had learned how to win a regional championship.
Temwa was at the centre of it.
Then Kansas City called
Kansas City Current signed Temwa ahead of the 2024 NWSL season.
She was leaving an environment in China where she had become comfortable, successful and extraordinarily productive.
The NWSL presented a new question.
Could she do it again?
New country.
New league.
Different physical demands.
Different tactical environment.
Temwa’s answer took one season.
2024: the record falls
Temwa scored 20 regular-season goals in her first NWSL season.
That broke Sam Kerr’s previous single-season league record of 18.
She became the first player in NWSL history to reach 20 goals in a regular season.
She also became the first player in league history to score against every opposing team in a single regular season in an era with at least 10 teams.
And she scored in eight consecutive regular-season matches, another league first at the time.
The individual awards followed.
2024 NWSL Golden Boot
Twenty goals.
Seven more than her closest competitor, Barbra Banda.
2024 NWSL Most Valuable Player
The first African-born player ever to win the award.
That would have been enough for most careers.
Temwa came back in 2025 and did it again.
2025: again
Temwa scored 15 regular-season goals in 2025.
Another Golden Boot.
Then:
another MVP.
Kansas City confirms that she became the first player in NWSL history to win MVP in consecutive seasons.
She also became only the second player in league history to win multiple Golden Boots.
So the headline became almost absurdly simple:
2x MVP.
2x Golden Boot.
Back-to-back.
But her 2025 season contained more than the trophies.
She became the fastest player in NWSL history to reach 25 career regular-season goals.
Then the fastest to 30.
She became the first player in league history to score in seven consecutive regular-season road matches.
And her performances helped Kansas City win the 2025 NWSL Shield, during a regular season in which the club set league records for points and victories.
At this point, “successful in the NWSL” no longer described what Temwa was doing.
She was altering its record book.
The Ballon d’Or
The rest of the football world noticed.
Temwa received her first Ballon d’Or Féminin nomination in 2025.
She ultimately finished 17th in the world.
One year earlier, Tabitha had become the first Malawian nominated for the award.
Then Temwa followed.
Two sisters from Rumphi.
Two consecutive Malawian Ballon d’Or nominees.
And she still wasn’t finished with America
Temwa entered 2026 recovering from an injury that had kept her out for 168 days.
Her return did not look much like someone easing slowly back into football.
She immediately began scoring again.
By July 2026, before leaving Kansas City to join Malawi at WAFCON, she had reached 43 goals and 11 assists in 58 NWSL regular-season appearances.
She had also become the fastest player in NWSL history to reach 50 career goal contributions, reaching the mark in only 53 regular-season games.
Kansas City has now secured her through 2029.
And then she left one historic campaign to join another.
WAFCON
Malawi arrived at the 2026 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations as debutants.
They had never played at WAFCON.
Their first opponent was Nigeria.
The defending champions.
Ten-time African champions.
Temwa scored Malawi’s first-ever WAFCON goal in the 73rd minute.
Then Tabitha scored.
Then Temwa scored again.
Malawi beat Nigeria 3–2.
Two goals for Temwa in Malawi’s first game at the tournament.
It was some introduction.
Egypt
Against Egypt, Temwa’s influence became broader than finishing.
She helped create Rose Kadzere’s opening goal with a weighted pass, then scored Malawi’s third herself.
Malawi won 3–1.
By the end of the first two games, Temwa had become the first Malawian to both score and assist in the same WAFCON match and had already accumulated four tournament goal involvements.
Ghana: the World Cup goal
Then came the quarter-final.
Malawi versus Ghana.
Win, and the Scorchers would qualify for the 2027 FIFA Women’s World Cup.
Ghana scored first.
Five minutes later:
Temwa.
1–1.
Then in the 79th minute, Rose Kadzere scored the winner.
Temwa supplied the assist.
Malawi won 2–1.
For the first time in history:
Malawi were going to the FIFA Women’s World Cup.
The dream Tabitha and Temwa had spoken publicly about years earlier was no longer hypothetical.
Brazil 2027 was real.
Algeria: the sisters again
By the semi-final, Temwa had scored four goals and supplied two assists, tying for the most goal involvements in the tournament at that point.
Then Malawi played Algeria.
Tabitha scored.
Temwa scored.
Tabitha scored again.
Malawi 3–1 Algeria.
The sisters had produced all three goals that sent Malawi into the WAFCON final on their tournament debut.
Temwa’s WAFCON tally rose to:
5 goals.
And Malawi’s tournament went somewhere almost nobody outside the camp could reasonably have predicted.
From first-time qualifiers.
To World Cup-bound.
To finalists.
The numbers now tell two stories
The trophies in the famous photograph tell one story:
2x MVP.
2x Golden Boot.
But Temwa’s career tells a much larger one.
She has scored:
55 goals in 57 games in Sweden.
84 goals in 84 games in China.
She was the world’s leading club goalscorer in 2023.
She captained Malawi to its first COSAFA championship.
She won the COSAFA Golden Boot.
She won Player of the Tournament.
She broke the NWSL single-season scoring record.
She became the first NWSL player to reach 20 goals in a season.
She became the first player to score against every opponent in one NWSL regular season.
She became the first African-born NWSL MVP.
She won two Golden Boots.
She won two MVPs.
She became the first player to win those MVP awards back-to-back.
She became the fastest player to 50 NWSL goal contributions.
She reached the Ballon d’Or.
She scored Malawi’s first-ever WAFCON goal.
She scored the equaliser in the match that took Malawi to its first FIFA Women’s World Cup.
And she has now scored in the semi-final that sent Malawi into its first WAFCON final.
Temwa Chaŵinga’s résumé
✔️ DD Sunshine
✔️ 55 goals in 57 appearances in Sweden
✔️ Four Chinese Women’s Super League titles with Wuhan
✔️ 84 goals in 84 appearances for Wuhan
✔️ World-leading club goalscorer in 2023
✔️ 2023 COSAFA Women’s Championship winner
✔️ 2023 COSAFA Golden Boot — 9 goals
✔️ 2023 COSAFA Player of the Tournament
✔️ 2024 NWSL single-season goals record — 20
✔️ 2024 NWSL Golden Boot
✔️ 2024 NWSL MVP
✔️ First African-born NWSL MVP
✔️ 2025 NWSL Shield winner
✔️ 2025 NWSL Golden Boot
✔️ 2025 NWSL MVP
✔️ First back-to-back MVP in NWSL history
✔️ Fastest player to 50 NWSL goal contributions
✔️ 2025 Ballon d’Or nominee
✔️ 17th in the 2025 Ballon d’Or
✔️ Malawi’s first-ever WAFCON goalscorer
✔️ 5 WAFCON goals through the 2026 semi-final
✔️ World Cup-bound with Malawi
✔️ WAFCON finalist with Malawi
And she is 27.
Tabitha opened the road. Temwa accelerated down it.
There is no meaningful way to tell Temwa’s story without Tabitha.
Her older sister brought her into DD Sunshine.
Recommended her for Sweden.
Supported her through the loneliness of living abroad.
And kept telling her that she could become even better than the sister she was following.
But there is also a point at which every younger sibling has to become herself.
Temwa did.
She stopped being simply the second Chaŵinga.
She became Temwa.
The player who could score 84 goals in 84 games in China.
The player who could arrive in one of the world’s toughest leagues and break its scoring record in her first season.
The player who could repeat the Golden Boot and MVP double the following year.
The player who could take the same ruthless finishing into Malawi colours when the stakes became continental.
Temwa is HER
So yes.
Keep the phrase.
Because now there is enough evidence behind it to make it more than a slogan.
Temwa Chaŵinga is HER.
Not because of two trophies.
Not because of four trophies.
Not because of one extraordinary American season.
Because the same thing keeps happening.
Malawi.
Sweden.
China.
Southern Africa.
The United States.
WAFCON.
Different teams.
Different continents.
Different opponents.
Same result.
Temwa scores.
And now there are two matches left on the immediate horizon that matter more than almost anything she has done before:
the WAFCON final against Cameroon;
and, next year, the FIFA Women’s World Cup in Brazil.
The trophies in that photograph tell one chapter.
The full résumé tells another.
And at 27 years old, perhaps the most frightening line of all remains the one beneath the photograph:
she is not done yet. 👑
